Can life be like a romantic comedy?

BarcelonaAfter years and years of romantic comedies, many women have been unable to escape the illusion of finding a supposed Prince Charming. Jessica, the protagonist of Without measure, is part of this group. After her boyfriend leaves her for another girl, a influencer who is the personification of the most canonical beauty, leaves New York and moves to London, the setting for iconic romantic comedies such as Notting Hill either Love Actually. Her first night in the city, she meets a musician who could be the love she's been waiting for, but the circumstances surrounding them are nothing like those in the movies she loves so much. With this as a starting point, Lena Dunham, who became a generational reference thanks to Girls, explores the complexities of romantic relationships. Without measure, which premieres this Thursday on Netflix and is available with Catalan subtitles, is the return to television of the New York creator, who in recent years has been more focused on cinema.

During the years it aired Girls It was quite common for the media to look for parallels between Dunham's fiction and real life. With the new series, the New Yorker will not be able to escape this cross because the story of Without measure is clearly inspired by her personal experiences. After a few difficult years for her physical and emotional health, in 2020 she moved to London and through some friends met the musician Luis Felber, whom she married in September 2021. Together they have written this series in which Dunham has a small supporting role.

Those in charge of interpreting the main couple are Megan Statler, a rising star thanks to Hacks, and Will Sharpe, who appeared in the second season of The White Lotus. Physically quite similar to Dunham and Felber, the actors play two people burdened by all the experiences of their respective, rather complex, romantic pasts. Statler says she quickly identified with the character she plays. "Jessica and I walk the walk with our hearts on our sleeves. We're emotional, dramatic, weird, and we're still that way as adults," the actress said at the series presentation.

"Romantic comedies are probably the genre that made me want to make movies," Dunham explained during the series presentation. "The films of Nora Ephron, Mike Nichols, Nancy Meyers, Elaine May, and Penny Marshall were aspirational, but they also had a certain level of honesty about what it's like to be a woman and navigate this world. I thought, 'Is there a way we can get inside the backpacks of people who, from what happens to you in your twenties, you have a trail of complexity behind you. When you react to a person you're falling in love with, you're not just reacting to them, you're reacting to everything and everyone that came before them,'" the creator reflects. This approach, which dissects Dunham, is what attracted Sharpe to the project, which the actor describes as a very realistic and sensitive series.

A range of familiar faces

Beyond the lead couple, for her new series the New Yorker has enlisted a wide range of well-known actors and characters, some of whom make only small appearances. To play Jessica's mother and grandmother, Dunham chose Rita Wilson, who previously appeared in Girls playing Marnie's mother, and Rhea Perlman, the popular Carla Tortelli of Cheers. From the universe of Girls, has also brought back Andrew Rannells, who here plays the protagonist's boss and ex-brother-in-law.

The fact that the filming took place in London has led to the appearance of English and Irish actors. Among them is Andrew Scott, from Ripley and Fleabag; Kit Harington, the Jon Snow of Game of Thunder; Richard E. Grant, and Stephen Fry, with whom Dunham already worked on the film Treasure. In the celebrity section, the singer Rita Ora and the model and actress Emily Ratajkowski, who is the partner of the protagonist's ex-boyfriend, stand out.

One of the technical curiosities of Without measure is that, to move forward, Dunham has allied herself with the British production company Working Title, responsible for some of the iconic romantic comedy titles mentioned in the same series, such as Bridget Jones's Diary, Love Actually either Notting Hill.